


Those Things I Mean to Say

by ObliObla



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Based on a Tumblr Post, Established Relationship, F/M, Playlist, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-11-09 09:18:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17999093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObliObla/pseuds/ObliObla
Summary: Based on a Playlist created by @wollfgang:She’d told him.Chloe had held her worries at bay for one desperate moment and gave Lucifer those words she was afraid she’d never have returned.“I love you.”And all the fears she’d had were realized.





	Those Things I Mean to Say

You can find wollfgang's Spotify playlist (except #5) [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4l8mxbynDhZEfCvABfKuwR?si=wQyZ0ok2TySG5IEEmDl7FQ). All songs sung by Hozier.

 

> 1: From Eden

She’d told him.

Chloe had held her worries at bay for one desperate moment and gave Lucifer those words she was afraid she’d never have returned.

“I love you.”

And all the fears she’d had were realized. He hadn’t fled—not directly—but his habitual mask had crept back onto his face as he smiled with teeth but without feeling and swept her up in the aching, simple joy they could make with each other.

And she’d thought the matter rather permanently closed.

But a few weeks later, when he’d withdrawn still further, she received a message. A Spotify playlist of all things called, somewhat enigmatically, _Those Things I Mean to Say_. It was an empty Sunday afternoon, without Trixie and filled with housework, so she slipped her earbuds in and made to start in on the laundry.

She didn’t make it past the chorus before she was throwing unfolded socks back into the basket and sitting on the edge of her bed. She wanted to laugh, maybe. Or be offended— _wretched_ … Was that what he really thought? And of course he’d found a song literally from the perspective of the Devil. The Devil, who’d found something so precious he…

_A rope in hand for your other man to hang from a tree._

She jumped. That was… They hadn’t talked about…

The music turned darker, filled with almost violent vibrato.

What was he trying to say?

> 2: It Will Come Back

The next song was more low key, bluesier, angrier. A plea for merciful rejection, and her worries redoubled.

Was that what he wanted from her?

It was always so difficult to tell. And referring to… _himself_ , probably, in the third person. Or, those parts of him he didn’t think, even now, she could ever accept. Did he really think she would just leave?

He did. Of course he did.

Everyone else had, after all.

_I know who I am when I'm alone; I'm something else when I see you._

It was sung tenderly, but in accusation; she could almost hear _him_ say it, now. How dare you make me want to be a better person? How dare you make me want to _try_?

She tasted blood and realized she’d been biting her lip, hard. She made herself take a breath, relax her hands against the sheets. What would it take for him to realize she didn’t see him as some kind of… beast?

She didn’t want him to hide outside her door, or to howl there—why wouldn’t he just come inside?

> 3: Better Love

This song Chloe had heard before.

It had been in some movie; she didn’t remember which one, but she preferred to dwell on that than to think of Lucifer and the word ‘love’ together.

It hurt too much.

The production of this song was… smoother, somehow, and she had to restart it partway through, realizing she hadn’t caught any of the lyrics. She might be upset, but this clearly meant something to him. Even if this all led to breakup via mixtape (something she really hoped had been left behind in the ‘90s where it belonged) she would see it through. She didn’t really think she _owed_ him that, but he was getting it anyway.

_I have never loved a darker blue than the darkness I have known in you._

Something in her chest caught, but this oblique pseudo-admission was nothing more than a platitude unless he took real responsibility for the way he kept blowing hot and cold, but there wasn’t a song in the world with lyrics that could do _that_.

> 4: To Be Alone

Nice guitar riff—but she hardly had time to consider the musicality, before…

_All I've ever done is hide from our times when you're near me._

His self-hatred thrummed through the chords, conjuring images of the wildest parties of Lux—dirty corners, flashing needles, screeching music… All those coping mechanisms he’d denied himself since they’d begun doing… whatever this was.

Maybe he _had_ been trying, in his own way, but he didn’t know how to show it. His avoiding her had _always_ stemmed from fear, hadn’t it? Why would it be different now? Her insecurities were important, but he had them too; literal tons of baggage collected over millennia, with no idea how to express how he felt. Even now. But this…

“I know many languages,” he’d told her once. “But I’ve always found music to be the most honest.”

Maybe these songs weren’t an excuse to not talk to her; maybe they were the only way he had to speak.

> 5: Do I Wanna Know?

The drums pounded in her chest like an errant heartbeat.

This cover was somber and soulful; where the original was sung with a half-desperate whine, there was tenderness here. And a deep, aching vulnerability. She didn’t notice her tears until the salt burned her eyes and she shut them against the pain. Had she not been paying attention?

_Darling, we both know that the nights were mainly made for saying things that you can’t say tomorrow day._

He’d whispered things against her skin she couldn’t make out over her own harsh breaths. Held her as she shook, from release or from the nightmares where he lay, drenched with blood. Washed her hair with infinite patience before the sun came up and, sometimes, she would wake to him watching her, face softened with dawn and a bone-deep sense of peace.

An expression she rarely saw in the daylight, except…

> 6: In a Week

There was a homicide case—it hadn’t been theirs, but Ella had volunteered to double check the forensics work, and had been spreading the crime scene photos over the table in her lab when they’d arrived to ask about a newer murder.

The bodies lay on the desert sand, dead for so long there was nothing left but bone. Two adults—one probably male, one most likely female—had somehow ended up in a highly inaccessible part of Death Valley. Marks on the remains showed clear signs of animal activity but they were, for the most part, intact. In the same position they’d been in when they’d died.

In their undisturbed little corner of the valley, wrapped in something like serenity, the remnants of their hands were still clasped together.

It had rained the previous week, the dust washed away and the little yellow flowers that followed the rare desert precipitation woven around the pelvises, between the ribs and through those little entangled finger bones.

She had felt the wave of sorrow that always came when seeing the dead, but Lucifer was neither frowning with her, nor blank in his characteristic way, having seen, she knew now, much, much worse. Instead, his lip was curled in a sad but serene smile, his eyes shining, half with the beginnings of tears, half with a strange contentment.

He would be alone when she died; her soul would likely rise and his could only sink. But maybe, in a sandy grave, there could be peace.

_I'd be home with you; I'd be home with you._

> 7: Almost (Sweet Music)

The higher tempo of the next song was almost jarring after the sedate pace of the last. This song, told in other songs’ titles, confused her at first. Who was _she_? Who was _you_?

But then she understood.

_I'm almost me again, she's almost you._

When she could look at him without seeing fire and ashes and ruin. When he was freed, for the briefest moment, from the shackles of his identity, and could simply be.

When she could be. When _they_ could be.

Dropped into the depths of his truth, she’d found herself pulled under by the riptide. She hadn’t know what to do, hadn’t even known where to start, had endeavored to ignore it. She’d believed she was doing what was best, but… had she been?

Or had she been afraid?

There was a difference, after all, between not caring about his past and disregarding it.

> 8: Work Song

He had died for her. Twice.

And he really had come crawling back to her.

She buried her head in her hands, sobs coming harder now, almost loud enough to drown out the words, but she clung to them all the same. If she’d been looking for a true admission of love, more than platitudes, it lay in the fatal stillness between a pained, bloody exhale and the sweet shock of an unexpected inhale.

But these words, _these_ words said everything she hadn’t been able to hear in that silence. And they weren’t empty anymore, for now she knew the ring of their truth. They could have been plucked like overripe cherries from the deepest, shivering part of his soul.

_If the Lord don't forgive me, I'd still have my baby and my babe would have me._

Even the lyricist surely couldn’t know the subversion in his verse. A proclamation of a rebellion more complete than the first had ever been. Not simply that he disagreed with his Father, but that he was indifferent to Him. And his radical indifference had sprung, not from him, nor from her, but from the both of them, together.

What could be a more ardent declaration of love than that?

> 9: Movement

The accusations had all fled; there was only gratitude now. No more how dare you, but thank you, _thank you_ for making me want to be better, to be who you see.

_When you move I'm put to mind of all that I want to be._

All she wanted was for him to see himself as she saw him. And maybe he wasn’t there yet; maybe he’d never be there, but he was willing to try and that was what really mattered. Her tears were from love, now, but still they came, tumbling down her face as she stood, needing to think, to pace, to _move_.

Needing… _him_.

She picked up her phone, there was one final song left in the playlist and she wasn’t sure her heart could take it. But she would try, for him. She navigated to Messages, unsure of what to say. But then the words were searing themselves into her brain and her fingers were moving before she realized, the text sent with a whoosh that was barely audible over the hymn-like acapella of the end of the song.

_Come home to me._

> 10: Like Real People Do

It was a soft, subtle song, not that her attention was particularly fixed on it.

Were things going to be perfect now? Of course not. Nothing was ever perfect, and their respective traumas would always find new ways to unbury themselves and mettle in their lives, but if they could just _communicate_ , in whatever form it needed to take, they would be ok. They would be ok.

_Honey, just put your sweet lips on my lips, we should just kiss like real people do._

There was a knock on her bedroom door, and she yanked the earbuds out.

“Chloe,” Lucifer said quietly through the wood. “May I come in?”

She nodded, face and mind still numb enough from tears it took her a second to realize he wouldn’t be able to see. She took the few steps to the door in a rush and twisted the handle. He stood still, with trembling hope in his eyes. She pulled him to her, pressed her lips against his.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, when she drew back enough to meet his gaze.

“Me too.” She stroked his cheek. “I listened to the songs.”

“I’m not good with…” He frowned. “Not when it really matters.”

“I know.” She brushed her thumb down over his lip to lessen the blow. “Would you promise me something?”

“Of course, darling.”

“Don’t shut me out, _please_?” she asked, more tenuously than she’d intended.

“I won’t.” He took a ragged breath. “I _won’t_.” His arms tightened around her.

“I love you,” she said, leaning up to kiss him again, not needing the words, not for the moment. She knew they were there, after all, deep within his soul, because she could feel their gentle flicker in her own.


End file.
